WB ap­points Qimiao as new coun­try di­rec­tor for Bangladesh

The World Bank has ap­pointed Qimiao Fan as the new Coun­try Di­rec­tor for Bangladesh. A Chi­nese na­tional, Fan was the coun­try di­rec­tor for Be­larus, Moldova and Ukraine be­fore this new ap­point­ment. The Dhaka of­fice of the global aid agency said he would start as the World Bank's new Coun­try Di­rec­tor for Bangladesh, Bhutan and Nepal on Mon­day.

World Bank South Asia Vice Pres­i­dent An­nette Dixon will in­tro­duce Fan to the Bangladesh govern­ment. Fan joined the World Bank in 1991 and has held lead­er­ship po­si­tions in dif­fer­ent coun­tries and re­gions of the world.

From 1998 to 2002, he took leave from the World Bank to work in the pri­vate sec­tor in var­i­ous se­nior ex­ec­u­tive po­si­tions in China. Af­ter re­turn­ing to the World Bank, Fan worked as a pro­gramme leader for the In­vest­ment Cli­mate Pro­gram in the World Bank In­sti­tute and later as the coun­try man­ager for Cam­bo­dia. Prior to join­ing the World Bank, Fan worked as a re­searcher in de­vel­op­ment and tran­si­tion eco­nom­ics at the Lon­don School of Eco­nom­ics and as a pol­icy re­searcher at the Jiangxi In­sti­tute of Fi­nance and Eco­nom­ics in China.

He holds a PhD in eco­nom­ics from the Univer­sity of Birm­ing­ham, Eng­land. He has pub­lished widely on top­ics re­lated to in­vest­ment cli­mate and prob­lems of economies in tran­si­tion.